Penelope Escapes the Platypusary by Bex Hainsworth

Bronx Zoo, 1957Your disappearance was not unforeseen.Dragged across continents, far fromthe vast and unbroken heat of home,you found yourself in imitationmud and pool, encircled by foreignroars and screeches. Betty diedfirst, suddenly. You must have mourned,aching for the place they scatteredher frozen bones. Cecil was a perpetualnuisance. In forced courtship, youwere Daphne, endlessly pursuedwithout the relief of laurel and death.Journalists were willing voyeurs:their headlines smeared you as b